MrBrown

Finished the Diablo4 campaign yesterday. It was ok. People seem to really like the tone better, I've never been able to tell the difference. Act 1, 4 and 5 (out of 5) had some neat moments, but otherwise I felt it was monotonous "let's run after the baddie" stuff. Felt the drama between characters was mostly too forced, couldn't care about a lot of them. Inarius was good, but should have been more prelevant I feel, Lilith was too prelevant but was ok otherwise. The rest were a bore, outside of a spoilery one. Gameplay... I'm not sure what to feel. I've been playing Barbarian, and the enemies in the game run around a LOT, so you need lots of movement skills as a melee character. And it still feels sluggish. I'd have a try some different characters and builds to give an honest opinion.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-06-01/arcane-s-redfall-misfire-for-xbox-panned-after-7-5-billion-microsoft-deal?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTY4NTYxODIzNywiZXhwIjoxNjg2MjIzMDM3LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJSVktNS1VEV1gyUFMwMSIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJCMUVBQkI5NjQ2QUM0REZFQTJBRkI4MjI1MzgyQTJFQSJ9.eeX5BYdsJhqgSi3aqDZTZUVYmm92ZItcoOCXfP7-j8Q

They're surprisingly varied and well written. There's over a 100 of them though, so I might just have not gotten to the boring ones yet. Mechanically it's still Diablo though, go there and kill stuff, maybe with a few gimmicks.

Literally unplayable.

Impressions in general seem to be positive, so far.

https://www.pcgamer.com/activision-blizzard-ceo-audaciously-claims-that-sexism-and-harassment-problems-were-made-up-by-an-aggressive-labor-movement-trying-to-destabilize-the-company/

Started Palace of Ice, the Solasta DLC. Kinda boring to be fighting against Soraks, again. Hopefully it'll change soon.

https://www.gamewatcher.com/news/daedalic-entertainment-has-another-lord-of-the-rings-game-in-development Personally, I thought a game about Gollum was a lousy idea. He's not relatable, likable, there's no story potential unless you want to retell the LotR story, he's got no skill set that would make for variance in a game. Haven't played any LotR game either, so can't compare.

https://gameworldobserver.com/2023/05/23/paradox-interactive-hit-games-kill-rate-growth-strategy

But did you buy the collector's edition to get earlier access to the game?

https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/15/23723703/microsoft-activision-blizzard-acquisition-approved-eu-european-commission

https://www.eurogamer.net/digitalfoundry-2023-star-wars-jedi-survivor-pc-worst-triple-a-port-of-2023-so-far

Been playing Last Epoch recently. Diablo-clone. Very much so, outside of the time travelling element in the story, there doesn't seem to be much unique going on for it. Seems ok enough though, so if that floats your boat, it might be good. It's in Early Access. Also haven't reached late-game yet, so dunno how that'll work.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-04-26/microsoft-s-69-billion-activision-deal-blocked-by-uk-watchdog?leadSource=reddit_wall

Previous DLC was just a month or so ago. Paradox has two different teams working on two different DLCs for Stellaris, apparently. Still can't understand how that's profitable. *Buys all the DLC*

extra beta https://news.blizzard.com/en-gb/diablo4/23938755/help-us-gear-up-for-launch-during-the-diablo-iv-server-slam

I recommend using the standard array or point buy, if you want a reasonable challenge. If you just set the stats at what you want it gets pretty easy.

Started playing Diablo3 again, after the D4 beta ended. Needed an action game, because everything else I'm playing is not very actiony, I think it'll hold me over until D4 comes out.

So apparently by buying one of the pricier Diablo 4 editions, you get access to the game 4 days earlier than people who buy the regular edition. Dunno if companies do that regularly these days, but what a stroke of genius! You get to let people in stages instead of all at once which is better for server load, AND they pay for it!

Done with D4 beta for now. Seems good. Will probably buy the game when it releases, unless something weird comes up. Feels more like a typical RPG with the huge number of side quests.

I've played Rogue and Necro on D4 so far, Necro is way easier. But yeah, summoners are hard to balance.

Played a few hours of D4. Dunno why all these diablo-likes insists on having really slow starts. It's ok one time, but if I have to level all future characters like this, I just might not. Cutscenes are loooong. Got bored and skipped all I've come across so far. Otherwise seems quite similar to D3. Just early game though, dunno how it'll end up.

Isn't D4 online in the same way D:Immortal is, that there's always other players in the areas?